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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095786">Powersouls</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aejrogota/pseuds/aejrogota'>aejrogota</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>'n Verlore Verstand, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Description-driven, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mild canon divergence, Mount Nibel, My First Fanfic, Short One Shot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:42:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28095786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aejrogota/pseuds/aejrogota</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tifa runs away from home, crossing Mount Nibel in search of a piece of herself that she lost one fateful day in 1995.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Powersouls</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tifa’s muscles burned in exhaustion from the exertion of her haphazard and desperate ascent. Her clothes and shoes had become soiled by ashen swills of the mountain’s moonlike dust, spattered by droplets of blood torn by the dead roots and branches upon which she had impulsively grappled. The shrill howl of the midnight peakside gale caught in her ear, a screed of a demon clothing itself in the ghostly darkness. It watched her with its fangs and its bloody eyes and its dreadful talons. Tifa dared not even to look; she feared it would pull her into the deep if she so much as peeked over the trail’s hanging edge.</p><p>Tifa had first glimpsed the wandering star from her room as it passed under the cover of the cold and cloudless night. The starry tide buoyed it listlessly as it drifted past the edge of the town, north towards the old mansion, and then beyond, past the trailhead into the pointed peaks. It moved so silently, so gently. It was as if it were taking great pains to avoid waking Tifa now that her dad’s stories had soothed her to sleep for the night.</p><p>But Tifa could not sleep. Her mind had been chained to the hesitant words of the town doctor as he relayed the news of the accident. As the sun set, Tifa’s father tried to recount the bedside tale of some errant warrior of light, hoping to put her to bed as always. But his voice cracked with a sorrow so complete that it bled her pained heart dry. She sat numbly beneath the moonlight long after he left, pressing her face against the biting cold of a window lightly frosted by morning dew.</p><p>It was only then that Tifa had seen it. It was only then that Tifa had <em>known</em>; the star beckoned to her as only <em>she </em>could have beckoned to her. Its call was as ancient and familiar as her voice, as distinct as the way her steps used to groan on their creaky wooden stairs. How dare <em>she</em> sneak away, into the cold of night, with hardly a kiss to mark their parting. Tifa knew it wasn’t <em>her</em> time yet; she would reclaim her place in the warmth of her embrace. Tifa thirsted for it as if she had spent her entire life apart from its fount. There was not a moment to spare; every second spent dithering ever more permanently rent the tender fabric of her warmth from Tifa’s heart. She understood this from the deepest seat of her soul, even as, one by one, her supposed friends peeled away from her side to flee from trouble, back to their warm beds, away from her abject misery. Tifa knew the gulf to <em>her </em>heart was crossable even as the far shore lurched beneath the horizon in full rout, vanishing behind the sunset with a jealous green flash.</p><p>The gulf <em>had</em> to be crossable. There were no possibilities left to her in her mind’s eye; there were no ways forward but this one.</p><p>Tifa hesitated as she watched the creaky wooden bridge flagging in the turbulent winds of the interpeak pass. Her friends had told her they heard nobody ever managed to cross the mountain alive; for the first time on her trek she believed it with a full head and heart of terror. A cursed shiver rippled through her entire body. She forced herself to turn her eyes skyward only to see <em>her</em> star, twinkling, as it finally set, obscuring itself behind peak on the far side of the bridge.</p><p><em>No, no, no.</em> <em>No!</em></p><p>With a ragged and anxious steadying gasp, Tifa gritted her teeth and stepped out onto the bridge’s first plank, gripping the rope handles so tightly they cut into the already-raw-rubbed skin of her palms and fingers. Her thoughts were frittered by incomprehensibly pained self-chatter, a conflict between her desperate resolve and that pesky instinct which threatened to corrode it.</p><p>Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. Tifa braced herself and slowly pulled her heart towards that untalkative heaven. She refused to open her eyes until a gust emerged from the belly of the demon in the dark and caused her footing to slip. She yelled out from the eerie blindness in her night. Tifa thought she heard a familiar voice call out behind her in a panicked response, but it was drowned by the howling in and between her ears. She did not turn her head enough to see who it might have been, had been anybody at all. She steadied herself and paused for just a moment. Glimpsing upwards, Tifa caught sight of the star past the mountain’s far peak. She took the first deep and careful breath she had taken in a very long while.</p><p>Then the rope bridge suddenly began to sway violently again. This time, the gust was too much for them to bear. The panels of old wood buckled beneath her; the freezing air protested her fall, but was powerless to stop her descent into darkness. The night sky retreated rapidly from her vision, etching itself into the recesses of her latent memory. Her screams were lost in that space. Then, flashing moments of debilitating pain, and a dreamlessness.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was a short study inspired by the aesthetic and allegorical themes of 'n Verlore Verstand (specifically, the bridge and blizzard stages). When canon-divergent from FF7 it was to accommodate that source. Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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